When location-based services came to be in iOS and Android in 2008 when phones started including powerful GPS modules, not many could imagine how many apps would value from that data. In the first few years, it was primarily used for powering local settings (e.g. time zones) or local searches (e.g. nearby restaurants). And then nearly every app found value in using location to provide more locally relevant experiences. Mobile is a tool for mobility after all, and mobility is about changing location. The next generation of location-based services uses live location in real-time to do cool things. Current location and live location is the 2 feature of several apps, with the help of which you can share your stable and unstable location with your friends and then your family members.
Where you have set a location to meet your friend or your family members, that location is shared with the current location feature. And the live location is that you are in a specified place at a specified time, meaning you are not in one place, you are traveling with time. As an aside, there is an automated product that Snapchat’s research team built called Story Explorer—but that solves a much simpler problem. It allows you to explore snaps similar (same location, event, etc.) to snaps in a live story. If you turn on your live location, you’re not going to trigger any notification. But we would suggest not using live location on Snapchat especially if you have a lot of random added. You never know who could be creeping up on you. Earlier, Users have the option to update live status updates on Snapchat.
The feature could be activated by clicking “Live Location” under the camera option in Snapchat and will see a blue dot appear near the user’s location (on desktop) and in the map view of their phone (on mobile). It allows users to take photos or videos. You can’t track anybody unless he/she is willing to share location with you. The live location feature has already come in WhatsApp and now it has been introduced for Snapchat. So you can track a person if he/she is sharing a live location with you. The new feature of Snapchat will now allow the users to show their real-time location to friends for 15 minutes. The new feature of Snapchat will help the user to get connected with family and friends in real-time for a while. On Friday, Snapchat has said via Twitter that “Make sure you and your friends get home safely with temporary location-sharing”.
The new Snapchat feature is pretty much similar to the Find My app of iOS which allows the user to share precise locations with the help of an inbuilt GPS mechanism. Only mutual friends of the iOS users are allowed to view the live location. A similar feature has also been introduced for Snapchat users in the app and the company has partnered with “It’s On Us”. It will eventually help young Snapchat users keep track of their friends. The Online live location feature will help in combating sexual assault. Furthermore, the representatives of Snapchat also told that “Through a new safety tool in the Snap Map and an expansion of the in-app resource portal ‘Here For You,’ Snapchat and It’s On Us are helping students look out for one another and creating a safer space for students across the country”.
There is no foolproof way to track someone’s location without their willingness but assuming cooperation you can ask the person to send you their live location. Snapchat has a live location feature where they can send their current location and it changes as they move. You need a data plan to be able to transmit that location data however and battery life may be an issue, especially on old phones. Live Stories are compilations of Snaps from Snap chatter- at events and locations around the world. Live Stories are curated by Snapchat and typically appear for 24 hours. Human curation is probably the only reasonable way to build this product. The necessary man-hours to generate tagged data to build a good ML model for this is significantly greater than just using curation.
We also doubt you could train a good model to create stories that feel like they have a narrative arc (which is true of Live Stories today). The live location of Snapchat can be a vital tool in lowering stalking and assault attempts as it will share the continuous live location of the user in real-time. Afterward, users can also pause the sharing of the location without sending a notification to the other party. The real-time live location can only be sent to limited and mutual friends. Users are restricted from sending live locations to all the friends of Snapchat owing to security concerns.
How To Share Live Location On Snapchat With Family and Friends
You can easily share your live location by following these steps. Here is the precise guide to making you understand the required steps to share location in real-time.
Step 1: Select and open the profile of the particular friend with whom you want to share your live location on Snapchat.
Step 2: In the profile section of your friend, scroll down to the bottom and you will see an option “share my live location”.
Step 3: Click on “share my live location” and you will see a pop-up on your screen. It will inform you about the new live location feature.
Step 4: Click on the “sounds Good” option and proceed further to share your live location with your friend.
This feature will only work with an individual friend. First of all, you will have to select the friend with whom you want to share a real-time location. You must keep in mind that you are not allowed to share a live location with more than one friend for the time being. When you will select the friend for live location share, he/she will see your bitmoji with a new icon “live” in front of that. This live icon will particularly be visible to the friend you have selected and no one else can see that icon except your selected friend.
